I don’t often get calls emergency calls, but I’m always willing to help gigging musicians if I possibly can. I got a call on Friday from a tech’ needing a little help. Got a guitar with a sticky switch and not enough time to strip it down and change it.

As it goes it was a fairly simple fix and didn’t need replacing. So a quick tweek, a new set of strings and it was good to Rock ‘N’ Roll.

So there it is, back in the rack, ready for the gig in Lincoln Castle.

Bobby Harrison, re-united with “Tommy”. Glad to see I’m not the only one that names his guitars!

I don’t often get to see guitars I’ve worked on in action, what a great night out..

I just hope when I’m in my 70’s I can still “Move It” like good old Cliff.

There comes a point when even the best of guitars need a service and setup. Most people will have their car serviced regularly, why not your guitar?

While the strings are off I always give the fretboard a good clean.

The heads were a little stiff so a little light oil.

and a bit of exercise.

The volume and tone controls were a little “crackly” so some switch cleaner.

Before re-fitting the strings a little lemon oil on the frertboard.

and polish on the top, between the pickups. Easy while there are no strings in the way.

When I put the strings back it was also obvious that the neck was never fitted correctly, it’s a little wonky, at the last fret the strings are closer to the bass side than the treble.

It’s not off by much so slacken off the screws and it should twist into place.

That’s better…

All it needs now is a setup. The neck had just a little too much relief.

Trouble is the truss-rod adjustment is on the heel so I had to take off the scratch-plate and loosen the neck to get to it.

Then the action at the 12th fret. A little low…

so up with the bridge saddles.

with the others to match the fretboard radius.

The nut had an unusual problem, the slots were all too deep, causing open string buzzing. The ultimate option would be to fit a new nut but it can be fixed. I packed in some bone dust I collected from another bone job….

and drop in some thin superglue.

Once it dries you can cut the slot as normal with the appropriate size nut file.

“Hi George, a fantastic job and a really nice sounding guitar. I’m sure the pictures don’t do justice to the hard work you put in setting this up.”

“Absolutely fabulous job on my custom build, with a Fender body and a custom neck. The previous guitar that I had would choke and not sound right when I played it but now with the build that George had done, it sounds beautiful and I am unbelievably grateful to George”.

Now this was a really lovely guitar. I think a late 80s, American Built Strat’

Considering its age there’s not much wrong with it. A little bit of wear and tear on the frets…

The rest of it’s lovely, a really great colour too.

There was however one big problem that I hadn’t anticipated, the socket on the end of the truss-rod has been rounded out which made it rather difficult to adjust. The only way to get the neck flat was to put it on the jig….

As ever I used my calibrated beam with adhesive “sandpaper”, that way I know everything has to be at the same level.

You can see, just as I was getting started where the high frets were and where the worn low spots were.

High up, the 14th fret was the biggest problem. It was set a lot lower than all the others so I had to go further tan I really wanted too.

Once the frets are all at the same level the tops need to be re-crowned (rounded off) again.

With the frets an even height and re-shaped they need to be polished using 4 grades of micromesh.

Once the frets were done I cleaned and oiled the fretboard.

With the fretwork done I put the neck back on the guitar with my fingers crossed, How much neck set is there going to be, bearing in mind the truss-rod isn’t easily adjustable.

Luckily the gods of guitar setup were smiling on me and the set was within tolerance. A little high but within an acceptable limit.

The rest of it is quite simple setup. The action wasn’t far off just a little low.

so I raised up the bridge saddles just a shade.

The action up at the 1st fret was just fine, apart from the B string. The nut slot was so low the open string wouldn’t play at all. A little bone dust and superglue sorted that out.

Next the intonation, again not too far out but in need of a little adjustment.

The owner had it custom made but it just needed a few tweeks to get the full potential from it.

The first problem was the nut. The grooves were much too shallow which made the playing action at the first fret way too high. But it’s too narrow anyway.I don’t particularly rate brass nuts, I use bone, so that’s what we agreed to fit. The slot’s too big for a standard nut so I made one from a large blank.Making sure the bottom is square and flat..Grind it down to fit the slot…Put an angle on the top..and there we go, one nut ready for the slots…making sure the outer edges of the strings are equally spaced from the side of the neck..and the other strings spaced properly. I’ll cut the slots properly when I do the setup.

The next problem are the bridge saddles. The wasn’t enough space to correctly set the intonation. The only way to cure that is to file a little off the end of the saddles.More of that latter, the intonation is about the last thing that gets done.

Before that, a standard setup starting with the neck set..Then the action at the 12th fret…Set the outside “E” strings first….then the other strings to match the fretboard radius.Back to the nut and cut the slots down to set the action at the 1st fret.

The nut was rather high so once the slots were done I took it out again and took a little more off the top.Then back to the bridge and the intonation. With the springs out from the D and G strings there was just about enough room, the E and A saddles I filled down a little.There we go, ready to rock. As I say an unusual one. A Left-handed guitar but strung the Right-hand way. It seems the owner is left handed and plays that way but taught himself with right handed guitars and so still strings them that way! Never seen that before but whatever works for you!

A chap came to see me with an upgrade he has had a problem with. It seemed like an easy job, fit a new neck on to an old body.

This is as far as the screws got before they jammed solid and tore the heads out…

The problem is the holes in the body don’t line up with the holes in the neck…

A fairly easy fix. First drill out the torn out screw holes…

Cut some hard-wood plugs….

Glue the plugs in the holes and cut the tops flush with a sharp chisel

The neck pocket is a very sloppy fit so I clamped the neck in the pocket and used some thick thread in place of the two E-strings to line it up.

Drill new holes and fit new screws..

With the neck in place the angle is wrong. The action height is much too high, even without strings so that will have to be sorted later.

That’s actually the least of the problems. Running my fret rocker up and down the neck has exposed another major limiting factor with this neck. The frets are very uneven which means I’ll never be able to get a decent setup. To achieve that they need dressing first. I would actually always dress any new neck, even the high end stuff, it’s the secret of a really nice setup.

Not only were the frets very uneven but the truss-rod is stuck solid. There is a slight back-bow without the strings so I bolted it on the jig to level it before dressing the frets.

Once levelled I’ve re-shaped and polished them.

Cut a small shim to bring the angle of the neck back down.

The nut isn’t a very good fit and the slots are way too high…

so I’ve cut them down to give a reasonable action at the 1st fret.

The tremolo springs were also set far too tight, the trem’ was sitting flat on the body and would only bend notes down and not up.

With the setup completed just reset the pickup heights and it’s all done.

The moral of the story… Bolting on a new neck is not quite as easy as you might think! There’s a lot more too it if you want it to play nicely. Buying a cheap neck can be a false economy as it will need a lot more work to get it set up properly.